Peter Weir

Starting out in an Aussie industry that barely existed, Peter Weir has traveled the world looking for the revelatory moment and deeper truth. In films like Master and Commander and Dead Poets Society, he found people who—like himself—never play it safe.

When Josef von Sternberg's 1931 film An American Tragedy departed from Theodore Dreiser's novel, the author sued to protect his work. Dreiser lost, and the precedent-setting case established the right of studios and filmmakers to pursue their own vision.

In The Graduate, Mike Nichols captured not only the delicate mental state of his anti-hero, but the despair of the nation’s youth. The director looks back at how he shot one of the film’s most iconic, dreamlike sequences.

Time and again, Ashby stresses his desire to remain hands-off in his direction of actors and their instincts. Ashby may have been hands-off but, in the end, only Ashby carried the entire movie in his head.

Naremore's close-reading and contextualization of the film make Sweet Smell of Success seem like a heroic victory over its producers' own worst instincts and an even more remarkable achievement than we already believed.

Directors do love Los Angeles, and frequently use it as a backdrop-and even character-in their movies. We assembled a collection of behind the scenes shots of filmmakers at work on locations all over the City of Angels.